Movie Review: Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark

So, I never watched any of the Indiana Jones movies. Well, I did watch Crystal Skull when it aired in the cinemas, but that was kinda crap and people kind of discount that as a 'real' Indiana Jones movie. Out of many of Universal Studios's "classic" stuff, Indiana Jones was the franchise I never bothered to watch. I dunno exactly why, but I guess explorers just don't appeal to me as much as time-travelling death robots, a park of reverse-engineered dinosaurs, a man-eating shark terrorizing a town or unleashing a centuries-old undead Egyptian curse. 

So I guess I kinda have to watch this movie at some point in my life, so I picked up this movie, poured myself a drink and watched it. It was enjoyable! It's the iconic adventure movie franchise, and, well, I kind of needed to see it.

It stars Harrison "Han Solo" Ford, of course, and, well, he was enjoyable as this slightly-jerkass archaeologist adventurer with a hat and a whip. A lot of the adventuring tropes like Indy's classic look, crazy tribal enemies, weird magical baubles and ancient ruins filled with traps are all codified by this movie, so while it's not super-duper exciting to watch the very first versions of them on-screen, it's still fun to watch as Indy tries to outrun that big-ass rolling boulder out of nowhere. There's a slight bit of 'eh, seen that' thanks to a good chunk of the movie's best parts -- the boulder scene, exchanging the idol with a bag of sand, the whip, Indy's fear of snakes, and even the soundtrack -- has kind of been etched into my consciousness thanks to pop culture and various homages and parodies (thanks, Hearthstone!) 

It's still a pretty exciting ride, though. Sure, some of the choreography is a little dated, and some of the effects don't work super-well (the hilariously 'bwaaa be scared' riff they play any time a corpse falls on Indy's supporting cast never worked out for me) but it's a solid run through and I can appreciate how well the action sequence is framed for that period of time. 

Indiana Jones is just kind of cool, and he carries the movie, because, shit, the plot's your basic adventure story. Indy goes to search the mythological Ark of the Covenant from the Bible, for archaeological reasons, recruits a bunch of friends along for the ride (Indiana's hard-drinking ex Marion Riverwood, and boisterous savvy local guide Sallah) and fights a bunch of Nazis and his rival Belloq. There's a couple of extended swashbuckling action scenes, like the one at the town with the baskets, the long car battle, the fight with the musclebound Nazi as the plane turns around... it's pretty much just pulpy fun that alternates between fighting Nazis to surviving being trapped in a chamber filled with poisonous snakes to infiltrating a submarine base and stuff like that.

The actual archaeology part is more or less just an excuse to get the plot going, though I do like how the scene where Indiana tries to figure out where to put the staff on the little replica city isn't just glossed over and is give suitably exciting background music.

It's honestly not that hard to see why people like this movie. Yes, Indiana doesn't have much to him beyond being a lovable rogue. Sallah is hammy and fun, Marion alternates between being a girl with attitude and a screaming wreck during the snake scene, and honestly as far as women in 80's movies go, she isn't that bad. The plot is more of an excuse to jump from one fancy action scene or, well, iconic scene to the next, and the villains are flat, bland mwa-ha-ha types. We've got the greedy thief rival Belloq, Nazi General and Nazi Torturer Man as the main three antagonists, and they don't really have much personality between being evil. 

But honestly, 'fun' is indeed the right word to describe these sort of movies. Given enough time, I could come up with a huge list of all the logical fallacies that this movie has, but I don't really want to. It's fun! It's got a nice, B-movie, pulpy feel to everything that's going on, held together by particularly strong performances from Harrison Ford, Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies. Ronald Lacey as the Nazi interrogator (named Arnold Ernst Toht, though I don't think his name was ever spoken out loud in the movie proper) is also a stand-out among the villain ensemble as being particularly douchebaggy.

Of course, the way the movie ends is rather bizarre. Indy and Marion get themselves captured by the Nazis, who also get their hands on the Ark... but they open the Ark, ghosts show up and melt the bad guys's faces off in an unexpectedly gruesome scene with some really well-done practical effects. It kind of makes Indy's victory seem to kind of come out of nowhere, and if I wasn't already expecting this iconic scene to happen it'd be an absolutely strange way to end the movie. And the rather odd ending of the Ark just being shuffled into a pile of other crates (presumably with other similarly dangerous magical artifacts) is also kind of an odd (not bad, mind you, just odd) way to end it, but the journey's fun enough that I don't particularly begrudge the ending.

So yeah, it's a fun little romp. Some of the scenes might feel a little dated, and the pacing might feel a little dragged-out in some parts, but it's a fun, high-energy globe-trotting adventure with likable casts and iconic moments. No wonder it's been parodied and referenced so much.